Love Makes the World Go 'Round (Chapter)
The World is Moving Because of Love (世界はアイで動いてる, Sekai wa ai de Ugoiteru) is the 1st chapter of the series The World God Only Knows. Synopsis In Netherworld Constitutional Ministry of Far East Branch, a mysterious person is overlooking the percentage on how many runaway spirits they captured in Europe. Elsie appeared and is being told off for being late. Dokurou has been telling her why she's still carrying her broom after she's gotten a promotion. Elsie says to him that she cannot without it and it is hard to release it. Dokurou tells him that it is the end of Hell to have to dispatch a demon in charge of cleaning to hunt spirits. Elsie asks if there is really some kind of person who can do anything with women's heart. Dokurou tells her that there is a person and his name is the "Capturing God". Dokurou tells Elsie to first search for this man as there is no one who can be a better "buddy" than this man. Elsie accepts and is ready to go to earth. Dokurou then ask her to bring her the billy boot-camp DVD from earth and Elsie asks if he is still trying to lose weight. At the Maijima Private High School, a girl named Yū Hatori is shown. She is trying to avoid someone, but that person keeps going until he finally makes the girl fall in love with him. Later it is shown to be just a game which Keima Katsuragi is playing and she will be his 10,000 captured heroine. Also, it is shown that he is playing the game in the middle of class.. His teacher Yuri Nikaidō asks him if games are more fun than her lessons. Keima compares in his head the teachers lessons with that of games, but unfortunate for Nikaido he tells her there are 5012 games which are more fun than his teachers lessons, 15 games are just fun and 1 game is more boring than the teacher's lesson. Nikaido asks Keima what is the title of the game that is more boring. Keima does not reply but asks her to wait until after he reaches a save point. Keima is walking in the corridor with a swollen face. He starts to introduce himself. After hearing his "Otamegane" through the hallway, Keima turns around and sees someone calling and running after him at full speed. She fails to stop, collides with Keima and apologizes to Keima. Her name is Ayumi Takahara. She is from the same class as Keima. Keima dislikes females of the real world and that girls in the games are attractive. Ayumi asks him to clean out the rooftop for her as she was busy with the club and that he has much more free time. Keima questions Ayumi's thought process of colliding and teasing and asking a for favor at the same time. Meaning to reject the offer, he looks behind only to see a broom left with a note saying for him to clean. Cleaning the rooftop, Keima is still thinking with grudge towards females. He introduces himself that he's called "Capturing God". He sits down watching to his PFP and sees that he has 813 letters and reads them all. He replies to all of them, only to have one message left. The message is a challenge, and Keima accepts it. Lightning suddenly hits the rooftop and Keima is blown by the blast. He then sees a strange girl, thanking him for accepting the contract and that they will hunt for spirit. She takes Keima by his arm and flies off. They end up in a classroom. Keima is in shock about what has happened. The mysterious girl is looking outside the window, saying that she was detecting something. Keima still cannot believe it and decides to first save his game. After doing so, he asks who the mysterious girl is. The mysterious girl starts to introduce herself as Elsie de Lute Irma, also known as Elsie, and that she comes from Hell. Keima decides that this "3D" girl is too dangerous and leaves to buy a game. Before he can leave, Elsie grab him by the sleeve and tells him to watch out or his head might be taken. Keima feels his neck and finds a collar around it. Elsie says that Keima has accepted a contract with Hell. Keima recalls in horror the message with the "reply" button on his PFP. Elsie mentions that contracts in Hell are very strict and if he does not fulfill it, or if he discard it without approval, the collar will activate and his head will be taken. Elsie hesitates, but refuse to say what happen to the head after it is taken. Keima becomes frustrated and insists that Elsie takes off the collar. Elsie then tells him that it will come off once Keima the spirits are captured. Keima wonders what are the "spirits", while Elsie's hair accessory rings like at alarm. Elsie says that there is a spirit that is close and starts cleaning the area around the window. She Keima that there is a spirit in a girl on the track field. She points at Ayumi and says that she can see the spirit. Keima wants to know about the "spirits" that Elsie needs to collect. Elsie explains that the spirits are souls of evil beings that escaped from Hell. The spirits hide in a very unique place, the gap within a heart of a girl. Though Keima finds it hard to believe Elsie's story, he goes along with it and asks her to explain more. Elsie says that Keima's role is to fill the gap in the heart to force the spirit out and that the best way is to make the girl fall in love with him. Keima is shocked and says that she is making a huge mistake. He has never held a real girl's hand and real girls would not want his hand anyway as they call him "Otamegane". At the track field club, Elsie is seen crying and telling him that the situation is terrible. Keima says that she is the terrible one. Elsie starts pitying herself and complained that she is terrible at everything she does. Keima asks Elsie to break the contract, but Elsie explains that she cannot break the contract. The only consolation she can give him is that if a buddy dies then the demon's head will come off as well, meaning Elsie will die with him. The two are depressed as they sit near the track watching Ayumi and the other students warming up at the track. Elsie is crying and complaining that she is helpless. Keima tells her to shut up while he writes down a list games that he wishes to play before he loses his head. Elsie wonders if Keima is the capturing god in games, why not use his abilities to make a real girl fall in love with him. Keima tells Elsie to never to compare the real world with games as that would be rude to games. Keima says that this track and field club is not an accurate representation of a track and field club. Elsie does not understand what he means by accuracy. Keima then complains that none of the club members have their hair tied up. Elsie does not see anything wrong, but Keima yell at her that girls in the track field club must have their hair tied up. He complains that he will not do anything for real girls who are such imperfections. Elsie then noticed that Ayumi tied her hair up while getting ready for a run. Keima totally surprised, but he dismiss it as just a coincidence and that it is not enough to convince him. He then insists that they should be wearing bloomers instead of short pants. The girls' pants became bloomers, to their shock and embarrassment. While Keima is shocked, Elsie tells him that she can transform their outer appearance but Keima can change their insides. Elsie encourages Keima by saying that she has faith in him. The next day Ayumi yells and point at Keima. He is seen with many banners, including one with "Do Your Best! Takahara Ayumi-chan!". Ayumi kicks him brutally and asks him about the embarrassing banners. Keima wonders to himself why he is been treated like this. Keima tells Ayumi that the competition is coming soon so he is cheering for her. Ayumi grabs Keima by the neck and chokes him, accusing him of seeking revenge for making him clean the the rooftop alone. Ayumi leaves but threaten Keima that she will kill him if he does it again. Elsie comes out from behind a tree asking Keima if it is OK for Ayumi to be angry. Keima insists that it is fine and he needs to increase the number of encounters. He says that in a game, the closeness will be proportionate to the number of encounters. In other words, the more encounters he has, the more the relationship will bloom. For the next few days, Keima and Elsie continue to put up banners cheering for Ayumi, while Ayumi is angry and annoyed. On the fifth day Ayumi decides to just ignore Keima. Elsie wonders if Ayumi hates Keima much more than before. Keima then boasts that in a game, hate can be changed into love easily and that events with fighting or being disliked can actually become a plus. Elsie then wonders if Ayumi does not really hate Keima right now. Keima thinking to himself that Ayumi might already hate him and all the stress is giving him stomach problems. Keima goes off to the toilet, while Elsie embarrassingly tell him to take his time. While Ayumi was running, she gets called by three girls. They ask why are the second year students running before the third year students.Ayumi thought that the third years were not practicing that day and that there was not much time before the coming competition. The girls were not impressed with Ayumi's reply, they seem to be jealous that Ayumi was picked to represent the school in the competition over them. Ayumi says that she is willing to accept any punishment they give, and they tell her to run 30 laps around the track. Elsie was surprised to find bad "senpai"s (seniors/older peers) in the human world as well as in hell. Then next day Ayumi seems dissappointed that Keima did not put up cheering banners for her. While her friends tease her about it, she sees 3 huge balloons lifting up banners with the text "I ♥ Ayumi" floating above the school building. Elsie apologize to Keima that she could only make three balloons as she ran out of materials. However, Keima only wanted one balloon. The next day would be the competition and Elsie believes that with all the cheering Ayumi will definitely come first and the bad "senpai"s will regret what they did to Ayumi. Keima holding a basket of fruits, wonders if Elsie had bad experiences with her senpai. Elsie also believes that with Keima's cheering, Ayumi will fall in love with him after winning. Suddenly, they heard a yell from the track field and sees that Ayumi has fallen down. At the school infirmary, it is discovered that Ayumi has a sprain. Her friends wondered if there was something wrong with the hurdles at the track field while the senpai's seem happy that she has been hurt. Elsie thinks that it is hopeless. Keima reviews what has happened and declares that he can see the ending. Elsie is surprised at Keima's declaration. Keima explains that they are about 90% done and that he has played a game with the exact same scenario. Keima says that he has been wondering if she is like Sonata of "Solphage" or Hakka of "Caramel Drop" but after she got hurt, the scenario matched Hakka. Keima believes that the final battle begins now and decides to confess to Ayumi. Ayumi appears near the track in the evening asking Keima what is his business with her at the track given that she will not be involved with the sport for a while. Then she asks about the letter hidden in the fruit basket wondering if this is Keima's idea of being sarcastic. Keima tells her that he thought that if she ate the fruits she will become better and win the competition tomorrow. Ayumi throws a fruit at Keima's face and tells him to look at her foot and that she is not able to participate on the hurdles tomorrow. Keima insists that he believes that she is able to compete and claimed that she is not injured as she cannot be hurt that easily by only tripping over a hurdle. Ayumi tells Keima to think about the speed. Keima says that Ayumi was not running at full speed. Ayumi is shocked and asks how does Keima know. Keima says that her hair was not tied up and that she always tie up her hair when she gets serious about running. He asks if Ayumi could have planned to trip from the beginning. Ayumi explains that she believes that it is better this way, since now her senpai can enter the competition. Ayumi believes that she only became a regular on the team because she managed to have a good run in front of the teacher in charge. Since becoming a regular, her running time has not improved and she felt that she did not deserve to participate. Ayumi begins to cry, wondering why her running time does not improve despite her practicing so hard, worried that if she participate, she would come in last in the competition. Keima asks her rhetorically if it would not be fine if she did her best. He takes off his glasses and tells Ayumi that if she is worried about ranks, she has always first place in his heart. Ayumi's blushes and the spirit seems to become visible. But Ayumi starts throwing fruits at Keima, blaming him for everything that has happened. After almost emptying the basket of fruits, Ayumi sees a new pair of running shoes at the bottom of the basket. She grabs Keima by the hand and asks if he will cheer for her at the competition tomorrow. Keima agrees and Ayumi thank him while blushing. She drew closer to Keima and kissed him on the lips, while the spirit got ejected from her heart. Elsie then captured the spirit using a bottle. After that Ayumi won first place at the competition. She showed Keima that she was mentioned in a newspaper, but she wondered why she was talking to Keima as lost her memories about what has happened. Keima congratulated Ayumi, causing her to blush and wondering why. Keima wonders why he congratulated her, since they are strangers now that Ayumi does not remember what happened. He also wonders what happened to Elsie. Suddenly his classmates asks him where has he been hiding "her". Elsie appears in front of the classroom saying that she is Keima's little sister and she is transferring into the class today. Keima is extremely shocked and wonders what a messed up setup is this. Trivia *When Keima states that he is the "God of the Game World" (chapter 1, p.14), the image he used is based on the 19th century painting of Jupiter and Thetis by Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres.